Elias Medici is a Bay Area artist and the Assistant Director of UCSF Art for Recovery. His work explores memory, humor, and human connection through painting, creating spaces where personal storytelling and everyday objects become vehicles for reflection and healing.
Humor plays an essential role throughout his work and exhibitions. Stories about family traditions, childhood illnesses, airport searches for ranch dressing, bingo halls filled with frustrated seniors, and late-night reality television sit alongside reflections on addiction, grief, and healing. Rather than separating joy from loss, the exhibition allows both to exist in the same space.
One of his largest works, Maybe You're the Bench, reflects on a memorial bench dedicated to his sister MJ in Petaluma and the complicated emotions surrounding remembrance. Other paintings explore childhood in Laguna Beach, family rituals, and the hope embodied by lottery tickets, a recurring symbol inspired in part by a medium who told him that his sister wanted him to "buy more scratchers because something big is coming."
Humor plays an essential role throughout his work and exhibitions. Stories about family traditions, childhood illnesses, airport searches for ranch dressing, bingo halls filled with frustrated seniors, and late-night reality television sit alongside reflections on addiction, grief, and healing. Rather than separating joy from loss, the exhibition allows both to exist in the same space.
One of his largest works, Maybe You're the Bench, reflects on a memorial bench dedicated to his sister MJ in Petaluma and the complicated emotions surrounding remembrance. Other paintings explore childhood in Laguna Beach, family rituals, and the hope embodied by lottery tickets, a recurring symbol inspired in part by a medium who told him that his sister wanted him to "buy more scratchers because something big is coming."